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The Big Share: March 3, 2015

The Center for Media and Democracy and The Progressive are going to be busy at this year's Netroots Nation in Detroit, Michigan. Publisher Lisa Graves and Editor-in-Chief Ruth Conniff will be involved in several panels, and we are pleased to be able to present the film Keystone PipeLIES Exposed at a special showing.

“The Koch brothers’ petrochemical empire is poisoning the world and the American political process. From Detroit, home of the Koch petcoke mountain, to Sandy-ravaged New York City, where David Koch is the richest resident, leading climate justice activists will speak about how they’re fighting back against the corrupt fossil-fuel barons and building a better future.”

"The State Policy Network (SPN) is a network of 64 right-wing state-based “think tanks” that have been the leading advocates of the right-wing agenda in the states for over the last two decades. In November 2013, ProgressNow and the Center for Media and Democracy launched StinkTanks.org, which houses a national report on SPN, state-based information on the SPN affiliates in every state (including several state-based reports), and action items people can take to help expose SPN. This session will focus on presenting the information on StinkTanks.org and be used as an educational tool for progressives on how SPN works, the funders behind it (including the Koch brothers), and ways to fight back against those who work against us."

Ruth Conniff, will be moderating “Common Core: A View from the Middle” on Thursday, July 17 at 4:45pm in room 142 AB. The Common Core State Standards—expectations of what children should know and be able to do by the conclusion of each school year—have been adopted by 40 states and DC. The new standards, and the tests associated with them, have been the focus of a great deal of controversy. Tea Partiers are vehemently anti-Common Core, and the Obama Administration supports the standards. But parents, teachers, and advocates for public education also have serious concerns. How CCSS affects students in each community hinges upon how they are implemented. Come hear a reasoned and civilized discussion of this issue moderated by Ruth, who helped launch The Progressive'sPublic School Shakedown web site.

By Wendell Berry

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion—put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Wendell Berry is a poet, farmer, and environmentalist in Kentucky. This poem, first published in 1973, is reprinted by permission of the author and appears in his “New Collected Poems” (Counterpoint).